Thursday, January 29, 2009

I don't buy my kids a lot of "stuff," but I recently bought these tattoos at Target for $1.00 (there were about a dozen in a pack). My kids think they totally rock and I have to agree. As long as they stay FAR away from real tattoos. . . although I could see the value of the heart with MOM written inside. What do you think?

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

I have been wanting to make placemats for a very long time - ones that would fit on our tiny table, and would show the boys how to set the tiny table properly. A little scaffolding goes a long way. My original thought was to make felt mats and use embroidery floss to outline the place setting. TOO MUCH WORK - so it never happened. Here is the easy alternative that finally hit me. I took this cute paper with a different pattern on each side (reversible!), cut it into rectangles and drew the place setting on each one with a colored pencil. Then I took them to the library and had them laminated. I used a dry erase marker to draw the scalloped edges and then cut them out. Finally, I took a hole punch to fancy 'em up a bit. Caedmon carefully placed each piece of silverware on the mats at dinnertime - he even made sure the knife blades faced the plates! Yay! May I say that I think these are fabulous? Because I do. I might be cheesy, but I'm OK with that. Oh, and the cost of these darlings. The paper - $1.00 on clearance. The laminating - $1.50. $2.50 divided by 4 equals 62.5 cents each. Double Yay!

We have started decorating for Valentine's Day, and I am totally diggin' it. I strung these bird lights from IKEA along our art wire. Inspired by this post, I wanted to create a flower garland. The boys dyed some white coffee filters with red watercolor paint and droppers. After they dried, I mixed them up with some brown filters and strung them on cotton twine to create the garland. Next, we glued pieces of tissue paper to hearts cut from overhead transparencies. We layered some heart doilies into our mix, and turned on the lights. Frilly, fun, PINK! I heart it.

This is the igloo cake, which more closely resembled a turtle, in my opinion. But who cares, right? We decorated with shredded coconut and powdered sugar, for snow, of course. Added some pink m&m's, sprinkles and these lovely gingerbread hearts, which I bought after Christmas for 62 cents! No, they weren't stale; they were in a sealed bag. Joel dubbed it the "love shack." I tried to scrawl that in icing, but it looked really horrible. So, we cut it up and devoured half of it in one sitting. Even boys don't mind the pink when it's this yummy!

Saturday, January 24, 2009

I got a little paper making factory for Christmas. The boys and I tried it out and it was pretty cool. . . but I think if I actually made paper often, I'd have to produce it in larger quantities. It was a lot of work to make two tiny pieces with this kit. You could do the same thing with an electric blender and a larger screen. It's a simple process - rip up paper, soak it in warm water, blend it into pulp, smush it onto a screen, dry it out. We added flower seeds to ours (leftover from last spring) - so we can plant the paper. I think it'd be fun to make greeting cards that are plantable. As an aside, I actually got the boys some paper made from banana leaves and elephant POOP. I don't think we can beat that, because I am definitely not going to be putting any excrement into our paper.

Caedmon has taken an interest in the kitchen lately. Something he hasn't been into in a while, so I'm encouraging it. Last weekend he chose a quiche recipe from Mollie Katzen's book Salad Peopleand I helped him make it. I made little blueberry tarts with the leftover dough. Tonight we baked a cake, which is cooling on the counter. It's going to be a Valentine's Igloo. (Hopefully.) I'm hoping if I train the boys right, they'll be whipping up fabulous meals for me - maybe breakfast delivered to my bed?

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Some of my favorite photos from Christmas. The boys loved their dress up stuff. I hope they'll always be this easy to please. If anyone knows of a magic potion to keep your kids young, please let me in on the secret. Really, I think the secret is to just enjoy it while it lasts.

Monday, January 19, 2009

The temperatures have been sub zero nose nipping finger biting crazy cold lately and in lieu of going outside, I brought the snow inside. To a plastic tub and with frozen colored ice cubes and scoops pilfered from the utensil jar, we had a super fun treasure hunt. Caedmon dubbed himself an archeologist and Ansel piled all the cubes into a colander. So fun, until it melted. But hey, there's plenty more where that came from!

From the amazing Wilton kit. Add some sugar and some gumdrop trees and you have got yourself a super sweet pad. Don't you love the dripping windows? Makes me want to rename Ansel, "Hansel." Not really.

"It's from a kit?" you whisper in horrified tones. . .

"Yes, and some things are meant to be from kits," I reply with absolute certainty. They make for a more sane mama.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Has it been almost a month since Christmas? Unbelievable! This is the wardrobe that Joel and I made for the boys for Christmas. It's now filled with all of their dress-up attire. Joel built it from plywood and the fabric was actually a bedspread! The knobs are deer antler stubs and I added the yellow owl decals to match the yellow interior and to highlight the hidden owls in the fabric. I think if the boys ever "out grow" it, then I'll have to use it for my own stuff!